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THE PRESIDENCY. 



LETTER OF GENERAL DIX 

TO THE 

COMMITTEE OF THE MASS MEETING IN PHILADELPHIA, 

OCTOBER 8, 1864. 



New York, Oct. 6. 1864. 

Gentlemek : I have received your invitation to address 
the mass meeting to be held in Independence Square on Satur- 
day. The duties incident to the active command of a military- 
department render it impossible for me to attend public meet- 
ings, or make political speeches. But I accede with pleasure 
to your request to write you a letter. 

There is but one question before the country in the ap- 
proaching canvass. Shall we prosecute the war with unabated 
vigor, until the rebel forces lay down their arms ; or shall we, 
to use the language of the Chicago Convention, make " imme- 
diate efforts " for " a cessation of hostilities, with a view to an 
ultimate convention of all the States/' &c. ? 

Believing that the latter measure, for whatever pur- 
pose adopted, would lead inevitably to a recognition of the inde- 
pendence of the insurgent States ; and believing, moreover, 
that true policy, as well as true mercy, always demands, in the 
unhappy exigencies of war, a steady and unswerving application 
of all the means and all the energies at command until the 
object of the war is accomplished, I shall oppose the measure 
in every form in which opposition is likely to be effective. 

General McClellan, the candidate of the Chicago Convention, 
by force of his position, must be deemed to approve all the 
declarations with which he was presented to the country, unless 
he distinctly disavows them. Unfortunately, he is silent on 
the only question in regard to which the people cared that he 
should speak. He does not say whether he is in favor of a ces- 
sation of hostilities — the measure announced by those who 
nominated him as the basis for action in case of his election — 
or whether he is opposed to it. He does not meet the question 



B- 



2 

with manly frankness, as I am confident he would have done if 
he had taken counsel of his own instincts instead of yielding to 
the subtle suggestions of politicians. The Chicago Convention 
presented a distinct issue to the people. As the nominee of the 
Convention he was bound to accept or repudiate it. He has 
done neither ; and whatever inference may be drawn from his 
silence, either the war democrats or the peace democrats must 
be deceived. 

In calling for a cessation of hostilities, the members of the 
Chicago Convention have, in my judgment, totally misrepre- 
sented the feelings and opinions of the great body of the 
democracy. The policy proclaimed in its name makes 
it — so far as such a declaration can — what it has never 
been before, a peace party in war, degrading it from the emin- 
ence on which it has stood in every other national conflict. In 
this injustice to the country, and to a great party identified 
with all that is honorable in our history, I can have no part. I 
can only mourn over the reproach which has been brought upon 
it by its leaders, and cherish the hope that it may hereafter, 
under the auspices of better counsellors, resume its ancient ef- 
fective and beneficent influence in the administration of the gov- 
ernment. 

Does any one doubt as to the true cause of our national ca- 
lamities ? I believe it to be found in the management of the 
leaders of both the principal political parties during the last 
quarter of a century. In 1840 the great men of the whig party — 
Webster, Clay and others — men of universally acknowledged 
ability and long experience in civil life — were thrust aside, and 
General Harrison, a man of very moderate capacity, was selected 
as its candidate for the Presidency. The principle of avail- 
ability, as it was termed, was adopted as the rule of selection, 
and the question of fitness became obsolete. The concern 
was to know, not who was best qualified to administer the 
government, but who, from his comparative obscurity, would 
be least likely to provoke an embittered opposition^ This 
was the beginning of a system of demoralization which has 
ended in the present distracted condition of the country. 
It reversed all the conservative principles of human action by 
proscribing talent and experience and crowning mediocrity with 
the highest honors of the republic. In 1844 the democratic 
party followed the successful example of its opponents in 1840. 
It put aside Van Buren, Cass, Marcy, and its other eminent 



statesmen, and brought forward Mr. Folk — a man of merely 
ordinary ability. Parties which have neither the courage nor the 
virtue to stand by their greatest and best men soon fall into 
hopeless demoralization. This system of retrogradation in all 
that is manly and just has continued, with two or three abor- 
tive efforts at reaction, for twenty-four years. It has driven pre- 
eminent talent out of the paths which lead to the highesj^poli- 
tical distinction ; and multitudes, with a simplicity which 
would be ludicrous were it not so deplorable, ask what has be- 
come of our great men ? The inquiry is easily answered. They 
are in the learned professions — in science, literature and art, 
and in the numberless fields of intellectual exertion, which are 
opened by the wants of a great country in a rapid career of 
development. The intellect of the country is neither diminished 
in the aggregate, nor dwarfed in its individual proportions. The 
political market, like the commercial, under the influence of the 
inflexible law of demand and supply, is furnished with the kind 
of material it requires. It calls for mediocrity, and it gets no- 
thing better. The highest talent goes where it is a passport to 
the highest rewards. It withdraws from a field in which the 
chance of accession to the first civic honor is in an inverse ratio 
of eminence and qualifications. 

Thus, under the rule of the inferior intellects which party 
management has elevated to the conduct of the public affairs, 
the peace, the prosperity and the high character of the country 
have gone down. If the great men of the republic had control- 
led the policy and action of the government during the last quar- 
ter of a century, we should have had no rebellion. Distraction 
within invites aggression from without ; and we are enduring 
the humiliation of seeing a monarchy established in contact with 
our southern boundary by one of the great Powers of Europe in 
contempt of our repeated protestations, and another of those 
Powers permitting rebel cruisers to be armed in her ports to 
depredate on our commerce. 

Under such a system of political management no govern- 
ment can last long. I know it is not easy to change what such 
a lapse of time has fastened upon us. Politicians have the 
strongest interest in placing in the chair of State men of feeble 
purpose, whom they can control, instead of men of self-sustain- 
ing power, to whom they would be mere subordinates and auxi- 
liaries. But the time will come — it may not be far distant — when 
the people, tired of voting for men of inferior capacity thrust upon 



them through the machinery of conventions in which they have 
no voice, will rise in their majesty and place the conduct of their 
affairs in more experienced and capable hands. If such a 
change is not speedily effected, it is my firm belief that our 
republican institutions will fall to pieces, and an arbitrary gov- 
ernment rise upon their ruins ; for, unless the testimony of all 
history is to be discarded, no political system can be upheld 
except by giving to its administration the benefit of the very 
highest talent and the largest experience. 

Till this reform shall come, my advice to the great body of 
the people is to hold fast to their traditionary principles^ and 
good name by giving an earnest support to the war, and to scan 
with the severest scrutiny the conduct of those who control 
party movements. Many of the men who are most prominent 
in conventions have personal interests to subserve. Even those 
who are comparatively disinterested are not always the safest 
advisers. They have lived so long in the turbid atmosphere of 
party excitement and party traffic that they have contracted 
morbid habits of thought and action, which, like chronic diseases 
in the human system, it is hard to alleviate and still harder to cure. 
The only hope left to us lies in the patriotism and disinterested- 
ness of the great body of the people of all parties, who are facing 
the enemies of their country on the battle field, with a heroism 
unsurpassed in any age, or who at home, amid the prevailing 
tumult and disorder, are working out, in the quiet pursuit of 
their varied occupations, the momentous problem of -the public 
prosperity and safety. When they shall send out fresh from 
their own ranks new men to consult together for the salvation 
of all that is most precious in government and society, we 
shall have cause for hope and faith in our redemption from im- 
pending evils and dangers ; bearing, in the meantime, as well as 
we can, the heavy burdens which have been cast upon us by a 
quarter of a century of political mismanagement and public 
misrule. 

It is time the people should understand these truths. No 
one, perhaps, can tell them with more propriety than myself, 
having been, much of the period referred to, in public life, fruit- 
lessly contending against party contrivances which have in- 
volved the country in all the evils of civil strife. 

I am, very respectfully, yours, 

JOHN A. DIX. 

James II. Or.ne, Chairman, kc. 
Cadwalader Dil>dlk, Secretary. 






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